The Beach- A short story

He was sitting on the beach looking at the waves crashing on the shores and returning, never missing a beat. He looked around and saw children playing on the shores, peddlers trying to sell their wares and people eating stuff. It was the same everytime.
Yes, everytime. He had been coming here for 25 years. He could remember the first time he had come with his parents. He was afraid of the water and his father had told him, "I am here do not fear". He was amazed at how the water came and went back. How it had amused him that the waves which were so threatening became so harmless when they reached him.
Over the years he had come many times here. This place had many memories. Coming with parents and enjoying the snacks and playing, then with friends as he grew up and he and his friends spent a time dreaming about their future. He also spent much time with a special one here.
He let a sigh when he thought of her. She was a special person to him. They had a lot of things in common. He remembered how they both walked hand in hand on the shores or simply sat there watching the setting sun. How they sat there and had bhel How they laughed and talked about their dreams. Yes, not his or her but their dreams. How they professed their love for each other. Life was beautiful those days.
And then he remembered the quarrel. It was all silly in retrospect. Hindsight is always 20/20, someone had told him and it was true in their case. What started of as a silly argument soon grew into a battle. A battle of egos. He was determined to win it at all costs. He did not concede even a single inch, though she gave some ground thinking it was her weakness and that he was right. She would soon see to it and come back to him with an apology.
So confident he was that he did not expect her to deliver the stunning blow. Ironically, it was at the same beach that she announced she was breaking the relationship. He thought she would soon realize her mistake and come back. Soon he heard that she was engaged and she married someone else.
He was heartbroken. He realized that he, in his moment of vanity had lost the most beautiful thing that had happened to him. His love. True love. Which would never come back. He had won the battle but lost the war.
Now sitting here, he realized the lessons that the beach was always telling him but he had never learnt. The sea comes to the shore and threatens to take the land, but then goes back. So both the sea and land are in a harmony. There may be some transgressions but nothing serious. And both need each other. Without the sea, the beach is nothing. Without the beach, the sea has no significance. This is similar to our relations. We have keep it in a balance. We need people as much as people need us. And also that the tides do not wait for anybody. They carry on irrespective of anything. Life also goes on. It never waits for anyone. If we want to do anything, we have to do it now.
Otherwise, things that we cherish will be lost.
Thus he was lost in his memories when a kid came and asked him "Sir, will you have a snack. Please take something". He thought for a few moments and said "bhel". The beach had taught him another important lesson. No matter what, the waves come to the shore. So no matter what you have to fight and live the life.

------ END --------------

-VP

Going down.... down... down

So India suffered another defeat in the One day format. This time to South Africa. Though I had no illusions about our chances given that we have won only 3 matches against SA in SA, the margin of defeat was not expected. The way the most famous batting line-up in the world collapsed like a pack of cards does not inspire much confidence for the World Cup in 2007.
Of course, the coach Greg Chappell will come out with excuses like new conditions, not enough preparations etc etc. But the fact is that the Indian team has been screwed up big time. No Iam not asking to bring Ganguly back. But you should handle well what you have, anyway. Too many changes in the side, too many experiments in the batting order has hit the team hard.
The same team which blew away opposition last year and created a record, now is not confident of chasing a moderate total. Who is responsible for this? The coach and the captain of course. So let them, along with the selectors handle it. They have to make sure that the team selected performs well.
Click here for a picture depiction of India's misery in the 2nd one dayer.

-VP

So it begins

WC 2006 is finally here. Only half a day to go before the WC starts. I am expecting a great display of football that should keep us mesmerized for a month.
I will be making some observations of my own (When a WC start, everyone is an expert :-) ) .
Here are my pre-world cup predictions. Putting them down so that I can compare when it is done.

1. Winners: Brazil.
2. Losing finalists: Argentina
3. Semis: Germany and England.
4. Suprise of the tournament: Serbia
5. Disaster of the tournament: Holland.
6. Most goals scored: Klose.
7. Golden Ball: Ronaldinho.

Ok lets wait and watch as the drama unfolds in Germany

-Vinayak

Dress code

Wikipedia defines dress code as "a formal specification of acceptable attire for a specific event or location". We find dress codes in many places. Most notably in schools, army or in some industries where the working conditions require that. It is okay in these cases as they bring a sense of unity or ensure security of the employees.

Many of my friends work in companies that require a "dress code". They have to wear formals for 'n' days of the week. Formals also mean they have to wear a tie. And they are not marketing people, who may possibly deal with customers. They do not deal with outside people directly. They are software engineers!!. Why do they have to follow a dress code?
Programmers, architects etc do a lot of cognitive work. It is imperative that they are comfortable. But due to such a dress code, they may be uncomfortable, thus affecting their productivity in the long run.

Of course, there is a need for a dress code in companies. What I feel is that employees should be required to wear clean clothes. They should not wear shabby clothes. That should be sufficient.

-Vinayak

Well done India

India again won chasing. Well whats new in that you may ask given that (If I am right) they have consecutively won 17 matches chasing. This for a team that was labelled "Chokers" and was driven by the mantra " Put a score on the boards and then dive to protect every run ". I may not be accurate, but I am pretty close.
Most of the times we batted first if we won the toss. And especially in important matches. If we chose to field, the results were often disastrous. Rememeber India vs SriLanka in the '96 semifinal or India vs Aus in the super sixes in '99? We won the toss, fielded first and then did a poor job of chasing.
So Iam really glad that India have turned the tide (at least for now) . We have a decent batting line up. I will not say strongest or anything coz they have not been really tested on bouncy tracks. WI tour will really provide us a better idea.
Coming to the match, it was good to see the youngsters perform well, again. Sreesanth picked up 6 wickets. Debutant Robin Utthappa scored in the 80s, Yuvi and Raina then took the game beyond doubt by posting half centuries of their own. Utthappa played well and then got run out to some really poor cricket. But he has a lot of time to learn from such mistakes.

So well done team India, hope you continue the same form in other tours too.

-Vinayak

A welcome change

Bangalore was reeling under the heat of the summer. Add to that the heat of the frenzied violence that took place Thursday, Bangalore suddenly became very hot. So we got a pleasant surprise when it rained in the afternoon today. And not just drizzle, it rained for an hour or so bringing down the temperature and providing a welcome relief.

Some of my friends were getting bored of staying in the hostel for an extended weekend of 4 days. With nothing to do except watch movies, I have watched 4 movies in the last 3 days. They were good enough so they did not add to the ennui. I will probably watch another couple before the new week starts.

-Vinayak

Amazing!

This post is about the "greatest one day match" that took place on Sunday. Before I write about the match, I have a question? How?

How did the World Champions score a world record 434 and contrive it to lose in less than 4 hours?

How did the SA team, labelled as chokers even think of chasing it? The sheer audaciousness of the thought is unbelievable.

How did Ricky Ponting, one of the best captains in the game miss a trick as he underbowled Brett Lee and allowed Lewis to break a happy Murali's record for the most expensive one day bowler?

May be I will never stumble on the answer. But, the match was certainly superb.

In hindsight, it seems the Aussies took it a bit too easy. After all nobody had chased more than 334 and they were not aware of the danger until Gibbs had given the S Africans hope to win the match. The Windies did the same against India in '83. As Michael Holding said later " Every man went for his shots thinking that the next man would get them. Until there were no next men left" .

But I hate to tell that I missed most of it.

I checked the score after 30 odd overs of Aussies' innings and found that they were going great guns. After my siesta, I got to know that they had scored a (then) world record 434. In the hostel, we were talking about how India had the record for the worst defeat and that Australia would complete a routine victory. How wrong we were.

I checked the score shortly after SA started. Dippenar got out and I thought well everything is going the Aussies way. Well all know what happened later. But I still thought this was too good to last and SA were just giving a fight for the sake of their fans.
Once Gibbs fell, and the run rate dropped, I thought it was all over. Then the game went into a see saw mode, and when Hall fell with 2 off 4, we were telling "No! not now!! Not after coming so far" . What if Ntini got out?? But Ntini score probably the most important run of his career and Boucher finished in style.

The hostel erupted in joy and we went back to our beds still not believing what we had just witnessed.

A small thought crept to my mind later: If our batsmen had batted like Smith, Gibbs and Boucher almost three years back at the same ground, we would be World Champions

-Winz

In good company

One of the sites I visit regulary is wikipedia. I am amazed at the information on (almost) every topic present there. There is a column that lists the events, births, anniverseries etc of that day.

Curious to know who was born on the same day as me, I did a check.
These are some of the people whom I share my B'Day with:

1. Helen Keller
2. Tobey Maguire (Spiderman, for those who do not know)
3. Raul (Spanish star footballer)
4. Kevin Pietersen.

Another name that was not present is R.D.Burman
So I am in good company. Gives a nice feeling.


Source: Wikipedia
-Vinayak

Traffic Traffic everywhere

Yes, this is another post about the horrible state of the roads in Bangalore. To be more precise, the horrible state of the traffic in Bangalore. It is unbearable to say the least. Traffic jams at every nook and corner have created a sense of despair. People are put to a lot of inconvinience as the vehicles have to stop.

But, even here some vehicles fare better than others. Smaller vehicles can squeeze in through the tiny gaps between other vehicles. Of course, it is hard on the riders, but hey you get thru. Sometimes, such maneuvres add up to the chaos. Bikes go on the pavements. Still it appears that the ends justify the means. The big vehicles have to wait till the traffic clears. It is the case of big fish and small fish. While the big fish were caught, the smaller ones escaped.

Sometimes it is helpful to be small.

Signing off.

Two ends of a stick

Hi,

What I am going to write about here is probably common sense. But I think it is more difficult to accept ground realities than other fantasies. This blog is about actions and consequences.
Steven Covey has mentioned about this in his "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".

The idea is nothing but the plain truth. Actions and consequences are referred to the two ends of a stick. You cannot pick up only one end of the stick. You have to pick up the stick and so you get both ends of the stick.

So in essence, you cannot just act and hope that you need not face the consequences. All of our acts have a consequence. So we need to face the results of our actions. This is very easily said. No one wants to face the consequences. Many are astonished and some of them quarrel as to why they have to face punishment, though what they have done is wrong. It is this very mentality that is causing poor performance and degradation in all walks of life. Unless we accept our responsibilities and face the results of our actions, we cannot contribute effectively to our work and the society.

Oscar Nominations: An injustice

Yesterday, the oscar nominations from India were announced. "Paheli" a movie by Shah Rukh has been selected. Unless the panel (or whoever selected this) is so naive that they cannot discern the best Indian movie to be nominated, we are seeing some real gross injustice going on here.

And which movie has been discriminated against do you think? Well, actually there are two in my opinion. Black and Page3. Black is one of the most sensitive, well crafted and a brilliant movie. For those who do not know the premise, it talks of the struggle of a blind , deaf and dumb girl who finally achieves her goal. And Page3 is another excellent movie that talks about the emptiness in the so called "upper class" .Contrast this with paheli, that has a ghost romancing a woman whose husband has gone to earn more money. Of course, I do not have anything against the story, but a movie is much more than a story. It has to be supported by the cast and I did not see any exceptional performance from the cast. Of course, it talks about love transcending even life but is that all that is needed to get an oscar? Both those movies are far better than Paheli.

Or did the "committee" feel that Sanjay Leela Bhansali (dir of Black) had his chance with Devdas two years back and someone else had to get a "chance". This is typical Indian mentality. Or there may be other reasons for this decision.

All in all, this is a retrogade step taken in a very short sightedness way. This will definetely affect the quality of movies (that is not very good right now) in an adverse way.

Bye.

Back to square one

I really do not like the above expression. It means that after you have done some work (or substantial work sometimes) you come back where you started. That can be really annoying.

It has happened to me now. I have to do a project in a subject. I am searching for a project from the past month. I am still unable to focus on the project due to one reason or the other. Twice I thought I had almost finalized it only to back off at the last moment. This is really buggig me and I have decided to finalize it by next week.

What is Mourinho thinking?

Chelsea had a great season last year. They won the EPL etc etc. They are also the favourites this season. But going by what their manager, Jose Mourinho is doing, they may not last for too long at the top.

1. Buying good players does not make a good team: A team is a collection of souls and not just individuals. Buying good players may make the team strong on paper, but some time or the other, it will come crashing down. A team has to gel well and there should be a feeling of oneness among the players.

2. Having too many players will backfire in the long run: All players want to play as much as possible. They are annoyed if they are made to sit on the bench for a long time. Dissent will creep in. Players would want to leave the club. The end result is that the team and the club suffers.

3. Did he not look at Real Madrid?: Real Madrid also did the same thing that Mourinho is doing. They bought the best players and built a formidable team. But they have not performed up to the expectations since a couple of years. They also lost the premiership to Barca. Their players are leaving the club (Owen, Morientes etc) ...

Okay this is my hypothesis but I feel this is what will happen in a couple of years.

F's the buzz

I have been observing the world of sport. And F is the word that is creating a lot of buzz in the world of sports. By F, I only mean that the names of 3 superstars begin with 'F'.
The three guys are (Roger) Federer, Fernando (Alonso) and (Andy) Flintoff.

These guys have have made gr8 progress in their respective sport. But basically they have given a new star to their sport.

Federer has already become the next Sampras, Alonso is poised to become the next F1 champion. And Flintoff has provided a much neede boost to an English side which has taken on the Aussies. It is a real delight to watch the matches played between the two sides.
These 3 'F's have given us a lot to cheer about.

Ugghhh...

Hi, this was my previous post regarding the sorry state of a road in Bangalore.

The current post is about another busy area in Bangalore. This is the market area.
This Sunday, I decided to meet my friends whom I had not met for a looooonnng time. So I woke up early (on a Sunday) and boarded the bus to Market where I intended to change buses.
When I came to the Market area, I could not believe that such an important area can have such a filthy bus stand.
There was filth all the way throughout the area. It was something of a dumping area competing with the bus stand. The vehicles were parked in some order though. There was no place where I could find out where I went for the bus I wanted to board. It was quite a challenge to reach the other side of the bus stand searching for the bus. This kind of apathy on the part of the authorities is appalling. But what disturbed me most was that people went about business as usual, as if they did not care or they did not have an alternative.